How To Stay Cool Without Spending A Lot Of Money (Your Advice)

It’s that time of year again when the weather starts to get to a hotter and you need to find ways to stay cool. Here’s a question from a reader that is looking for inexpensive ways to beat the summer heat:

We live in the Southwest which gets very hot during the summer and our air-conditioning bill becomes outrageous. I’m a stay at home mom and I have two kids that are both under the age of 10. I’m especially in need of activities that I can do with the kids that won’t leave us all exhausted due to the heat. When it gets hot, they don’t even want to go outside which means the air conditioner runs the entire day.

9 Responses to How To Stay Cool Without Spending A Lot Of Money (Your Advice)

Try to keep your blinds drawn at least partially when the sun is at its peak in the later morning and midday – leave open enough to get light but not to let in maximum heat. With this sunlight, try to keep your electrical lights off, which produce more heat. And if you can get any cross breezes going with open windows and fans (versus the AC) that will help.

Try to stay hydrated with plenty of water so that you won’t feel the heat as intensely. Finally, find some ways to play that let everyone sit pretty still and not overheat too much, like playing some board games, or arts and crafts projects. If your kids are like mine, they’ll be inclined to run around and create extra heat, so finding activities that keep everyone more still will help. Good luck!

Activities: go to the library or neighborhood pool. Do outdoor activities involving water such as washing the car, playing in a sprinkler, or playing in a little blow-up pool. Seek shady playgrounds or hiking trails. No shade? hats make a big difference–they protect your head so you’re less likely to get a headache.

To keep your bill down: cover unused windows with tin foil (spray or sponge water on the window, stick tin foil to it, tape the edges down); buy a fan for the main room, drink ice water, wear shorts, look into any incentives your utility company may offer to “weatherize” your home.

Not sure if humidity (along with the heat) is a big problem in the Southwest, but here in the Northeast the hot, humid days are the most intollerable. If you have been running the A/C all day and would like to switch it off in the evening to take advantage of cooler temperatures, consider whether opening windows and letting all of that humidity in might be worse than the lack of airflow with A/C off and windows shut. While the air temperature may not get much cooler, at least you will be mostly isolated from the high humidity.

I called my power company (SRP) and set up paying a flat rate for my power consumption so that it stays the same all year. Like you, I also hated paying huge power bills every summer so I choose to pay more than I need to in the cooler months to balance out the power spike from running my AC all summer long.